Chapter 6

(Monday night — Cyberspace)

Beezle locked the terrified and sobbing Harmony Gifford in a closet bound and gagged. She was still clad only in her Winnie the Pooh underwear from Beezle's photo shoot. The newest chapter in his janitor story was being composed and it included the janitor kidnapping a girl on her way home from school that day. He was doing everything that he could to make it look like Jerry was writing a "How to" manual of child abduction and rape.

Lester though in his demented mind, "How dare he call me a sick SOB."

Two hours later, at the public library, he uploaded the new chapter, complete with a photo of Harmony Gifford! The chapter told how he was going home from his job at the school, and offered Harmony a ride. Of course that is where the events of the story and real life parted ways. In the story, the girl accepts the ride and comes along willingly until they reached his house.

Lester actually hid behind a cable company panel van, and rushed the girl, taking her by force. For this job, a clowned up Volkswagen was too unique. Lester threw her into the van and sped off. He had no clue that Jerry quit that morning, although with the story, pointing to Jerry, he was named a suspect.

In fact, Jerry had donated his home computer to the church to operate the sound and video system, reformatting the hard drive to the Windows XP NTFS format, and reinstalling everything new. He truly wanted to make a start of things, and that included a new e-mail address. That didn't keep the police from bringing Jerry in for questioning as a suspect in Harmony's abduction.

The Anchorage PD released him at 10:15 the next morning after depriving him of sleep and roughing him up. The pastor, aware of Jerry's problem was beginning to have second thoughts about giving him a job. When the APD questioned the pastor about his alibi, it checked out. It also checked out that he did not have access to a computer since giving it to the church. That didn't keep the APD from turning his home upside down looking for Harmony because of Beezle's new chapter.

Making matters worse, the APD wouldn't share why they suspected Jerry with the ASP. The reason was they based it all on an anonymous tip that pointed to the story website. They were tying Jerry and Harmony together by the school that he had worked at and that Harmony walked to and from every day.

The ASP got wind of it through the newspapers that the local man was the sole suspect in the abduction. Tim decided to call in a favor and paid a visit to Patrolman Langley. Langley still had a few days before he was released to duty, but he owed Tim his life, after the near fatal mistake. Tuesday morning, Tim took leave from the school and paid a visit to the officer at his home. Tim explained how he volunteered to help find the writer of sex stories, whose tales he posted followed three open cases now with the addition of his latest story, two from out of state, this one, was home grown.

"I read some of the stories myself, sometimes," admitted Langley. "Some 'Lucky Dog' dude writes some about Alaska things and wrote one about some state troopers. If you read the guy, you know it isn't him though."

Tim chuckled, "I read part of one he wrote last night, and if I ever see him in a courtroom on one of my cases, I hope he is on the jury!"

Langley laughed, "Are you kidding? He would go as the first challenge from the Defense Attorney in the selection phase!"

"To me it sounds like he might be trying to reach people on the edge," Tim suggested. "It's like he is trying to make them think about what brought them to the site, and why they are there. I think he is either an ex-cop or an ex-MP that was stationed up here. The guy has definitely been here before. Lucky is not the perp."

"Do you mind if I tag along with you on this?" asked Langley. "I've sort of got nothing better to do for a few days. I can talk to Stansky and see just what he has on the guy. I have a feeling the real perp is the one writing this stuff, and as far as anyone can tell, Ingram was nowhere near a computer to upload chapter nine with the girl's picture last night."

"He wasn't at the library, because my partner in the case, Sgt Green was there," Tim replied. "He doesn't get his cable hooked up until this afternoon. I guess he is getting the whole package."

"Have another cup of coffee," Langley offered. "I'm going to call Detective Stansky."

Langley came out a few minutes later, and said, "Can we talk to this task force guy? See if he can get me assigned to the case somehow. I don't think we are looking for a janitor at all. I think we need to look at one of the Cable installers. That is who made the anonymous call. It came from the Chugach Cable office."

"That's their whole case?" Tim asked, "They questioned that poor schmuck because someone turned him in?"

"Lots of details too," offered Langley, "like a description of him, and that he worked as a janitor at the elementary school right up to the day the girl was kidnapped. When I got off the phone with Stansky, I called the school to ask if they had any cable TV installed lately."

"Bingo, right?" Tim concluded.

"You bet," confirmed Langley, "and who do you think would show the cable guy to the new classroom?"

"Our unlucky janitor I will bet," Tim opined. "You have a good mind for this stuff. Did you ever thing about going into Criminal Investigations?"

"You think of a lot of other kinds of police work when you drive around all day or night in a patrol car, writing tickets for running red lights, doing 45 in a 30, no seatbelts, domestic violence, like I thought your wife's case was," Langley lamented. "You know, protecting society from the real criminals. Man I'll never live that one down. I'd been following the case in Texas I think where the wife ran down her husband for cheating on her. Caught him coming out of the hotel with his mistress, and ran his sorry butt over, then went back again and again to finish the job."

"It almost sounds like you don't blame her," observed Tim.

"Well, my old lady left me for some accountant in her office cause I was on nights when I started," Langley admitted. "I kind of sympathized with the woman in the SUV. Only in your case, when I thought that was happening, I had to try to prevent it. It's frustrating that we can't really prevent crime. Even the courts have it so screwed up that when you arrest the criminals they get off because someone didn't date a report or something. Even the threat of arrest is no deterrent anymore."

"Let's go talk to Tinker," Tim suggested, "and then we will go find our cable guy. We ought to talk to the janitor first about what he remembers about him."

Langley shook his head, "We are going to cost him his new job."

"If there wasn't a child's life at stake, I would give him a few days, but that does change things," explained Tim.

He left Ben Langley with Arnold Tinker, and Capt Clark, while he checked in with Marie. She was about to go to the store for some things she needed to make the casserole she planned for dinner, but would have time to meet him for lunch if he wished. Tim told her about the case, and Marie asked, "Where are all of these people coming from? There never used to be things like this happening here."

"At one time, we were a deterrent," sighed Tim. "Now thanks to the criminals having more rights than the victims, we are the clean up after crew. Don't get me started, you know how I can be."

"Someone has to think like you, Tim" Marie assured him. "That's why you are my hero. I'll see you at 5:15 then?"

"Lord willing and the dam don't burst," Tim answered. "Be Careful Hon, I'll see you later."

Tim went back to find Clark and Tinker giving Langley an update. Langley told him, "APD Patrol has no 'light duty' and this is light duty, so I am temporarily assigned here. Detective Stansky is going to have a cow when he hears we may be working the same case. He just wants to nail someone and move on. He is counting on burying the janitor, and if we come up with the cable guy as an alternate, it kills his case."

Capt Clark opined, "One would think the janitor's airtight alibi at the time of the abduction would cause him to keep looking."

Tinker said, "I am going to the APD and see if I can get a copy of the call giving the description of the abduction. I'll offer to compare notes and see if Detective Stansky will lighten up with the girl's life at stake. This shouldn't be a contest."

(Lester's apartment, Tuesday morning)

Harmony thought she heard the man leave and began to move around in the closet. Rubbing against the wall, she loosened her blindfold enough to see a little bit. The first thing she noticed was the keyhole. The keyhole looked like it was from a house built long before deadbolt locks and such, back when keyholes were something one could look through. By forcing the knot tying the blindfold up over her head, she was able to get it off of her eyes, although it was still knotted in her hair.

Now she could see a gap at the bottom of the door. She knelt down to see if her abductor or anyone was there, but something was in the way. They were clown shoes, just like from a circus clown. She scooted the two pairs of oversized shoes down so that she could sit, and began to kick at the door with her bound feet. She kicked for almost five minutes straight and was about to give up when the lower panel broke loose.

Two more mighty kicks and the panel flew into the room. Harmony crawled through the opening, and looked for a way out. The outer door was secured by a double key deadbolt, and she couldn't reach it, even hopping on a step stool like she had the doorknob lock. There was clown stuff all over, and then she saw the security cameras. She now feared for her safety, because the man would know she was out and would be on his way back.

Harmony found her shoes and clothes, but with her hands bound, couldn't dress herself. It felt like her hands were bound with a nylon scarf, just like her feet were. Harmony remembered a TV show where someone found a knife in the kitchen to cut their rope bindings, and went there to look. As she sat in a chair to cut the scarf, Harmony learned that nothing in real life works like it does on TV! The scarf was working loose, but not fast enough.

Then she thought about wetting the scarves. She couldn't reach the sink, but he had to have a bathtub. He didn't, only a shower was in the bathroom. She did find a small remnant of a bar of soap in the bottom of the shower, and looked disdainfully at the toilet. Harmony raised the seat, and flushed it to make sure that the water was fresh, and then dipped her bound hands into the bowl, soaking them, and getting the soap wet. After several minutes, she pulled her left arm free, and then untied her legs.

Quickly she dressed, and opened a window in the clown's bedroom, kicked the storm window out of its groove and climbed outside. Then Harmony ran, and she ran until she came to a corner gas station where she saw a State Police SUV. Running inside, she told the officer that she had been kidnapped, and that her name was Harmony Gifford.

Corporal Anderson called his post and within minutes Tim Sealy and Ben Langley were there. While Ben called the girl's mother, Anderson followed her tracks in the late spring snow back to the window. He then noted the weird VW decorated with all kinds of garish things with the "Bilbo the Clown" painted on the doors.

Tim paged Sgt Green, who called him right back. He couldn't come because he had gone to the house to wait for the cable guy, who just pulled up.

"Jerome," Tim cautioned, "we think the Beezle guy might be the cable guy. Be careful."

"Roger that," green replied. "Aw man, this guy was at the library last night when I was online. I better get my piece before I get the door."

"We are rolling," Tim replied, and called to Ben, "Ben, the cable guy is at Sgt Green's house. We need to back him up."

Just then Cathy Gifford drove up and hugged her daughter, and the officers. Tim explained that they had a possible suspect they needed to go catch and for her to meet them at State Trooper Headquarters in an hour. Tim and Ben took off in his SUV and parked two houses down from Jerome's.

Inside, Jerome made small talk with the guy, "Were you at the library last night? I saw someone that looked a lot like you using one of the computer terminals."